


Glass Container

by galaxy_saturn



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: I'm So So Sorry Please Don't Hate Me Before You Read It All, M/M, Pretty Much Just Major Klangst, Short Thing I Wrote Because I Was Bored
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 23:50:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8598736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxy_saturn/pseuds/galaxy_saturn
Summary: After a difficult battle, Lance is injured horribly and is on the brink of death. Coran puts him in a special solution meant to help him heal and wake up sooner.
I literally wrote this because I had nothing better to do and my friend had posted a picture of Keith putting a hand up to a container, saying "You didn't have to be the hero..." so I thought it'd be a good idea to take inspiration and uh. This happened.I thought I'd post it since some people like these types of heart-wrenching things, as I've already been told by quite a few people that this is, but if you read this, read it all the way through. All three parts. Otherwise, yeah, you'll hate me. Please don't do that.





	1. The Hero

_**The hero.** _

_The person who saved the day._

_He was always motivated, always determined, always doing whatever he could to help in any way he could._

_Now he's in a glass container -- frozen._

"Keith? It's getting late..." a voice called from behind the black-haired teen. The voice was gentle and sympathetic, and very obviously a female's.

The black-haired teen was standing at a glass container, watching the small bubbling of the green substance enveloping a tall boy inside the glass container.

The woman came and put a dark hand on the boy's covered shoulder. "You should get some rest. You all had a rough day today, so it'd be best if you all recharged for tomorrow..."

_"I need my beauty sleep!"_ Keith envisioned the tall boy behind the glass saying with a pout. It was a memory from a time Keith had woken the boy up in the middle of the night.

After a pause, silence from Keith, the woman ensured, "Coran put everything into making sure the mixture would bring him back. If need be, we can make it so that Pidge can keep track of his pulse."

Keith remained silent again, allowing another memory to seep its way into Keith's thoughts.

_"Keith, I'm going out there."_

_"Lance, no!"_

_"I have to!"_

_"No you don't! Why would you have to?! We can find another way to stop the ship if we just--"_

_"Keith, I have to go out there. I have to be the hero since none of you will be. We don't have time to think of another plan."_

_"Lance--"_

_"But, before I go, I just... I-I need to tell you something in case you're right and I don't come back."_

"Keith, he'll be alright," the woman repeated, nearly in a whisper. She took her hand off of the boy's shoulder and began walking away.

_"I love you."_

The doors shut with a boom in the echoing room. Streams of tears burned Keith's face as he punched the thick glass, then leaning his arm on the glass along with his forehead.

_**You didn't have to be the hero.** _


	2. Two Days

_**Two days.** _

_It's been two days._

_Why won't he wake up?_

"Keith? You okay? You look like you're going to be sick," a voice startled him, snapping him out of his trance.

One of the couches in the common room had become a bundle of wiring and computers, a black pad on the table projecting a blue screen showing the glass container holding the tall boy in a green, bubbling substance. That was where the black-haired teen stood -- leaning his arms on the back of the couch, to be specific. That way, he could look over the shoulder of the girl situated on the couch at the screen of the laptop in her lap and watch the screen showing the contained boy.

The girl with the laptop, which the screen of displayed multiple ratings pertaining to health and a pulse, had her hands on the headphones she'd just pushed down onto her shoulders. The headphones entrapped her curly, dirty blonde hair against her pale neck. She looked up through her round glasses at the black-haired teen, who kept his eyes glued on the laptop screen. There was an awkward pause of silence before she spoke again. "Keith?"

"Tell me how you and Lance met again."

"What? Why now?" the girl asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Just tell me."

The girl narrowed her eyes at him in a concerned way before finally giving in, clearing her throat and looking at the blue screen above the table with a smile. "Well, he, Hunk, and I were a team. We had to go in simulators together, we had all our classes together, and we were basically expected to be friends. Our dorms were close to each others'. We only got close, or at least became more than acquaintances, when he and Hunk stalked me. They followed me to my hiding place, otherwise known as the roof." She sighed happily. "If that hadn't happened, we wouldn't have found Shiro us three, then we wouldn't have met you, and then we wouldn't have gotten to go on this crazy adventure together."

There was an awkward pause between them as the girl looked back up at Keith, who was now watching the container with a blank expression.

"I know, sometimes it feels like maybe it'd be better if we didn't have to do this. I think it's the best, though. If he lasts two more days, the substance has enough power in it to wake him up," the girl explained, scrolling through the medical data on her laptop screen.

"What if he doesn't last two more days?" Keith croaked, very obviously holding back tears.

"He will. I'm sure of it. His ratings aren't _that_ low," the girl pointed out.

Keith paused completely, seemingly not even breathing, before straightening and beginning to walk away. "I'm going to go grab a drink."

 _"Ya know, these juice boxes remind me of those weird ones they'd always give us in preschool,"_  Keith remembered the tall boy mentioning as they were all sitting in the common room together with drinks after a day of training.

The dark-skinned boy beside the tall boy had laughed. _"How would you remember something like that?"_

 _"I have a good memory, thank you! Just like how I couldn't forget that mullet after last year,"_  the tall boy had replied, glancing over at Keith.

Keith had grumbled at the time about how his mullet wasn't that bad, and that had sparked an argument.

Keith hadn't noticed, but he had dented the straw of his juice box due to chewing while his thoughts played a memory. He sighed and leaned against the counter of the bright kitchen. Suddenly, the kitchen became dark. Emergency lights lit up as the emergency power for the palace kicked in, and immediately there was screaming.

"Keith! Keith! Get in here!"

Keith didn't even bother placing his juice box down; he dropped his juice box and sprinted back to the common room faster than he'd ever sprinted through the hallways of the palace. He came to a halt behind the couch full of wires. The screen above the table had disappeared.

The girl looked up at him again, her glasses glinting in the blue light that dimly lit the room. "Sorry about the screaming; it was all I could think of to get you back in here," the girl apologized in a panicked tone, "but look."

Keith looked at the laptop screen that had been turned to him.

There was no pulse.

_**He couldn't last two more days.** _


	3. The Best

_**The best.** _

_That's what Pidge said, right?_

_"It's the best". Yeah, joining a team with a complete dork who you fall for and who tells you he loves you then gets himself killed is most definitely the best._

Keith turned before the blonde-haired girl could say anything more and sprinted from the common room, despite the girl shouting his name. He made his way through the hallways, ignoring the man with white bangs in one hallway who asked him where he was going as he ran past. He made it to the room where the glass containers were. He went through the doors, them closing behind him with a bang and him bending over while catching his breath.

Keith looked up to find one container out, one filled with a blue light. A tan-skinned boy was in it, slumped against the side with his eyes shut.

"Lance," Keith practically breathed, walking up to the container. Tears threatened the corners of his eyes. The green substance was drained out of the container. Keith choked down a sob he felt building in the back of his throat as the threatening tears fell. "N-no... No! Lance!"

Keith banged on the container, repeatedly yelling that name. He was too busy shouting at the limp body to notice others had come into the room, until the doors shut and echoed a boom throughout the room. The loud, sharp sound startled Keith, causing him to inhale a staggered breath before leaning his forehead and his arms on the glass. "Lance, wake up," he pleaded in a whisper, shutting his own eyes and falling to the floor.

"Keith, let's go get you something to eat. You haven't eaten in a few days..." a voice from behind commented in a gentle, low tone. The man with white bangs came over and held a hand out to Keith.

Keith slapped the man's hand away, beginning to sob uncontrollably in the blue light.

"He's on the back side, so I can open the container without him falling out," the girl's voice informed from behind.

With a sigh, the man with white bangs retracted his hand and turned to face towards the girl. "Go ahead and open it, then. We'll inform Coran and Allura so that they can decide the best course of action from here." The man with white bangs walked away from Keith, talking back and forth between him and the girl echoing around Keith.

The doors shut again, the man and the girl going to find the others. Keith took some deep breaths and tamed his sobbing, simply sniffling now. After a minute of Keith being alone in the room, the doors opened and closed again.

"So, he's really..." the woman who'd stayed with him in this room two days before spoke. Her voice quickly faded to nothing as she came closer, as though she didn't want to finish that phrase. There was a pause before she instructed, "Alright, I'll have to have you two carry his body out to the--"

"No!" Keith practically screamed, standing up suddenly and turning around. He held his arms out to his side and glowered at the others distanced about twenty feet from where he stood. "You're not taking him!"

"Keith--"

"I said no!"

There was an awkward pause as the echo of Keith's exclamation died to silence.

"Maybe we should let the fellow be for a bit," another man suggested, scratching the side of his head through orange hair. The others silently agreed, all of them solemnly walking out.

Once the shut doors told Keith he was alone again, he fell to the floor, crying into his hands in silent whimpers. Nothing filled the air of the dimly blue-lit room. Keith's breaths were too soft to echo, leaving him in silence with his thoughts.

_"I love you."_

_"H-huh?!"_

_"Bye, Keith."_

_The boy sprints away from the hiding spot behind a wall. He sprints through the doorway they were hiding next to, shooting the many drones now targeting him. He makes his way to the control panel successfully, unharmed, and presses the red button in the middle of the gray panel of buttons. Beeping sounded through the entire ship, a robotic voice announcing the destruction of the ship. The brown-haired boy turned with a smile right as a blade was shoved through his stomach from behind._

_"Lance!"_

"K-Keith? Why... why are you on the floor?"

Even if the voice was soft and was more like a croak than a whisper, it was loud enough for Keith to hear. His eyes progressively widened, his tears ceased, his hands pulled away from his face, and he hesitantly turned his head along with his upper body.

Keith's puffy eyes were met by barely-opened blue ones.

"N-no... no way..."

"W-what?" the owner of the blue eyes questioned in a scratchy voice before coughing into his hand as he slowly sat up, away from the metal back of what was a glass container.

"L-... Lance?" Keith asked gently, astounded. "You're... you're alive?"

The boy smiled slightly with something of a chuckle. "Why wouldn't I be?" He cleared his throat, then rubbing the front of his neck. "Man, my throat is dry. How long was I out for?"

Keith slowly crawled over to the container, keeping his eyes locked with the beautiful blue ones.

"Uh, Keith?" the boy with blue eyes questioned worriedly, giving Keith a mixed expression of confusion and concern.

Keith sat in front of the opening to the container, which was close enough for him to reach out and punch the boy's arm. It caused the boy to wince, even though it wasn't that hard.

The blue-eyed boy sipped in a sharp breath through his teeth, rubbing his arm. "Dude, ow. What was that for?"

"You didn't give me time to respond before you jumped out there," Keith simply replied, climbing into the metal container.

"Wait, what -- what the hell are you doing?!" the brown-haired boy exclaimed, pushing back against the metal now surrounding them.

Before either of them knew it, their lips were interlocked. Keith thought it'd be farther, that he'd have to move forward more in order to make his lips meet the boy's, but since it didn't, he had his whole body leaning against that of the tall boy's. They stayed there for a moment, neither of them pulling away.

Finally, Keith pulled away for a breath.

"Keith--"

Their lips were together again, because of Keith, before the boy could say anything more than Keith's name. After another moment, Keith completely pulled away, relieving the boy of his weight, but he stayed in the crammed container.

"Lance, I love you too."

The beautiful blue eyes widened as the cheeks underneath them darkened in a red tint. The mouth connected to the red cheeks pushed the cheeks up as a smile spread. That smile soon opened as he began laughing. "Dammit, I only said that since I thought I wouldn't make it."

Keith's face went red, him sinking a bit in posture and averting his eyes. "W-wait, so you... you didn't mean it?"

Lance laughed again, though more nervously this time. "I-I did, but I wouldn't have admitted it s-since now I have to deal with the embarrassment..."

Keith paused before mumbling, still looking down, "Th-there doesn't have to be embarrassment..."

"M-maybe... not... just... kiss me again, Keith."

Keith did as Lance commanded. This time, Lance ran a hand up into Keith's black hair. When they pulled away, they barely did, keeping their faces close and Lance refusing to take his hand out of Keith's hair.

"I'm alive, right?" Lance asked softly.

Keith slowly nodded once, cracking a grin. They both couldn't help but smile at each and burst out laughing, wrapping their arms around each other.

 _ **Pidge was wrong. The hero didn't need two more days; he came back in two days.**_   **This** _**is the best.**_


End file.
